Microsoft Shows Off 100,000 Player Battles in Age of Ascent

For too long have we been digesting Microsoft’s statements over the power of the cloud.

For too long have we laughed at the company’s notion of true power with Azure. We can all now witness that immense power; which comes in the form of Microsoft’s new partnership with Age of Ascent, an HTML-based “ultra MMO” that will allow up to 100,000 players to do battle in the same session. All thanks to the might of Microsoft Azure server support.

Speaking during a presentation about cloud gaming at Develop this week, Microsoft’s Robert Fraser spoke about the upcoming Age of Ascent title which is currently in alpha. It’s a space dogfighting sim featuring theatres of war based on planetary scans and star maps carried out by NASA and the European Space Agency.

At peak capacity, the game has access to around 250 load balancers and game servers, all of which are available to Illyriad for $75 an hour.

According to Fraser, “that’s the kind of thing which uniquely cloud can provide you in terms of access to scale, and a different kind of experience.”

Announced on February 28 this year, Age of Ascent is aiming to “become the biggest MMO ever.” It uses an on-demand scaling cloud-based architecture and features real-time direct piloting in a single integrated universe.